


don't you know these days you pay for everything

by jugheadjones



Series: fp or mary comes out on top [5]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, just silly shit, kinda depressing honestly..., valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-29 23:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17817989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: “What about Mary?” FP asks, pitching for the other team.Fred looks blank. “What about Mary?”FP wants to hit him. “Does she have a Valentine?”Fred doesn’t take the hint, doesn’t so much as look at the hint, only slurps his milkshake in his world of self-pity. “Dunno.”





	don't you know these days you pay for everything

**Author's Note:**

> title from high hopes by bruce springsteen 
> 
> a very late valentines day fic for the 'anti valentines day' theme... and ok they only kind of came out on top... forgive me 
> 
> this is absolutely stolen from an archie comic but i cant find the original for the life of me and honestly it was funnier in my head

“I hate women,” says Fred on the phone, “I hate women, I don’t understand them,” and FP, on the receiving end of the call, listens as Fred’s mother whisks the receiver out of his hand and gives him the very beginning of a tongue-lashing. He hears as far as _Fred Andrews, how dare you say something like that, I thought I raised you better-_ before her voice is on the line in his ear, saying _Fred will have to call you back, FP, he’s in trouble now,_ and Fred in the background wheedles _“aw, mom, I didn’t mean it”_ before the call disconnects. FP, minutely cheered, counts to a hundred in his head and then walks over.

Fred’s on the porch when FP turns up the lawn, sulking and mollified, so FP suggests Pop’s for onion rings. The diner is done up for Valentines Day, paper hearts on the ceiling and pink milkshakes on the menu, and Fred orders one, two straws - _all he can afford_ , he apologizes with a grimace, and FP doesn’t say that he’d been hoping on it. Their legs brush under the table and if he squints it’s a date, if they were alone it would be a date, if it was four AM and there was no one else and their hands could clasp unseen on the sweaty vinyl - but it’s not, and it isn’t, and Valentine’s Day is Hermione’s day, not his, just like all public gestures are Hermione’s and never his. He’s lucky enough to share a straw, so he does, and waits for Fred to complain that he’s monopolizing the whipped cream, but he doesn’t.

“So why do you hate women?” asks FP, and Fred’s shoulders round forward apologetically - “I don’t,” he says, “I don’t, but Hermione’s driving me crazy, listen to what she did this time -” and FP takes an extra-long slurp as fortification and listens.

“She’s mad at me,” Fred explains, “because I told her I’d do anything she wanted to do for Valentine’s Day.” He stirs their drink with his straw. There’s whipped cream on his upper lip when he pouts- it makes him look boyish and tempting. “All I did was ask her if she wanted to see a movie or do something else. She says I can never make up my mind, and that she wants someone more masterful. More _decisive._ That I’m a pushover.” He looks up at FP, round eyes baleful and sad, and FP tries to look appropriately thoughtful. “Then Hiram rolls up, right on time, and _tells_ her they’re going to the movies tonight. I swear, it was like they planned it. I was _going_ to take her to the movies. I just thought I’d be nice and let her choose which one.”

FP rolls his eyes and inhales some more milkshake. Bullshit then, the game Hermione’s always playing with him - sending Fred and Hiram around and around in circles like a cat with an injured bird. “Where are they now?” he asks, feigning interest.

“Her place, I guess.” Fred looks wounded. “She took the chocolates and flowers I bought her, but maybe she didn’t like them. Maybe I should have got white roses. Everybody gets red. _Hiram_ got her red.”

 _Or maybe_ , FP should say, though perhaps Fred’s mama would have knocked his head for it, _maybe she’s just a bitch. And maybe Valentine’s Day is her day to act like a bitch and she knows it._

Fred bristles, sensing FP drawing away from his crisis. “You don’t understand what a big deal this was to me. I saved money for weeks for this. For _months_.”

 _Yeah, and she knows it,_ thinks FP, because he understands Hermione like the back of his hand, loathe as he is to admit it. Knows exactly the dark wires running under her pretty head, how her thoughts and plans slot together like dominoes. If he loves Fred he envies Hermione, if he desires her and despises her in equal measure it’s because this is precisely the effect she wants to have on him. Their uneasy understanding is based on the fact that they know each other all too well.

“What about Mary?” FP asks, pitching for the other team.

Fred looks blank. “What _about_ Mary?”

FP wants to hit him. “Does she have a Valentine?”

Fred doesn’t take the hint, doesn’t so much as _look_ at the hint, only slurps his milkshake in his world of self-pity. “Dunno.”

FP stands, grabs Fred and yanks him, marches him over to Pop’s phone booth and plants him outside. “Wait there,” he orders, and dials, eight digits he knows by heart, letting the wheel roll back with a satisfying _chrrrr_ between numbers.

“Who are you calling?” Fred’s wary, impatient, rising up and down on the toes of his shoes as he hovers outside the heavily graffitied booth. FP covers the mouthpiece and turns toward his friend.

“I’m calling Mary. You’re going to pick up this phone and say: ‘Mary, I want to take you to the movies tonight.’ And you’re going to hope she didn’t make other plans.”

Fred brightens when the receiver is dumped in his hand, stormy gaze disappearing as he tucks it to his ear and leans against the booth, turning on what Mary not-so-affectionately calls his loverboy voice: as in, _don’t try your loverboy voice on me, Romeo, it’s not cute._ “Hey Mary,” he drawls without hesitation, as FP drags a nail down one of the many sets of phone numbers on the wall. “How about dinner and a movie tonight for Valentine’s Day?”

The shift happens instantly. The smile slides off Fred’s face like he’s a chalkboard being wiped clean, the colour draining from his cheeks until FP can see the pale freckles on his nose. “I-” he stutters, and FP presses down on the hook, cutting the call off. Fred turns to him, mouth agape.

“I’m dead,” he whispers, hushed and surprised. “You killed me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” FP’s itchy for a smoke, running his thumb along his forefinger. “All I did was-”

Fred screams. “THAT WAS HERMIONE’S NUMBER!”

FP snorts. “Yeah, and now she knows she’s not your one and only. It won’t kill her-” The air explodes out of his lungs as Fred runs directly into his stomach, shoving him back into the phone booth. “Ow! Fred!”

“What is WRONG with you!”  His friend swings blindly at him and gets in a punch on the arm before FP grabs his head and forces him away. Fred keeps swinging and trying to rush at him, and FP has to double the pressure on the crown of his head to hold him back.

“Fred, calm down!” FP grunts. With his free hand, he grabs the door of the phone booth and slams it, sealing them inside and away from the curious faces of the restaurant patrons. His shoulders slump in the dimness as Fred pulls back and stands upright again.  “Let me explain.”

“Let you explain!” Fred’s nearing hysteria, their faces only inches apart in the close quarters, his body hot against FP’s chest. “You made me call Hermione and ask _Mary_ for a date! She’s never going to forgive me! I’m ruined!”

“You’re not ruined!” FP shoves him back so that there’s an inch of air between them, keeping his hands firmly on Fred’s shoulders and digging the thumbs in. “This is part of a plan-”

“The plan is you want me dead!” Fred wails. “My own best friend! My best friend in the whole world!” His eyes narrow, all angry on the surface, but FP can smell the undercurrent of fear - he knows his friend hadn’t chosen the words _I’m dead_ for dramatic effect. Fred was fucking terrified of his girlfriend and had ever right to be, and was no doubt convinced it made her hotter. “My best friend played the cruelest, nastiest prank on me I can imagine. How am I ever supposed to trust anyone ever again when you could do this to me.” Fred’s working himself into a frenzy. “How would you feel if your very best friend-”

“Boys!” Pop’s voice echoes from outside the phone booth. “Please settle this outdoors. Everyone can hear you.”

With a heartbroken and entirely staged sob, Fred pushes dramatically out of the phone booth doors and storms out of the chocolate shop. FP follows him at a distance until he’s turning up the Andrews driveway. Leaning casually against their mailbox, he calls up to the porch:

“Fred, if you’d let me explain that I planned this-”

“Don’t bother!” Fred’s turns around, fists clenched. “If that’s what you call friendship, then maybe-”

“Freddie!” A high voice calls from the sidewalk, and Fred’s head snaps to the side. He goes pale again, but Hermione’s tone has none of the expected venom in it as she steps lightly up the driveway, bypassing FP as though he’s invisible.

Fred hurries down the porch to meet her. “Hermione, I can explain.”

“Don’t worry,” Hermione says coyly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I can take a hint. You know I love boys who are so masterful and domineering.” Her hands go around Fred’s tiny bicep and FP watches him melt like butter, his face relaxing completely and the lights going on behind his eyes. “I deserved that, didn’t I, baby? Will you ever forgive me?”

Fred’s lips settle into a dopey grin at the pet name. Both of them are acting as though FP doesn’t exist. Some thanks for the guy who had orchestrated this whole thing. “I thought you and Hiram-” Fred murmurs.

“Who?” Hermione raises her eyebrows in childlike innocence. “I thought I was your Valentine, Freddie.”

“You’re always my Valentine,” Fred says softly, cupping her cheek, all anger forgotten. Hermione stretches up on her toes so that their lips are inches apart, resting a hand on the back of his neck. “Always you. No one else.”

Then they’re kissing. A lot. In full view of the entire street.

“Baby, aren’t you cold?” Fred murmurs as they break apart. In true Hermione fashion, she’s wearing only a cropped sweater without a coat. He tugs her in closer to him, eyes full of stars. “Let’s go inside where it’s warm. FP was just leaving.”

Oh, so Fred does remember he exists. Sweet of him.

Hermione yanks Fred down to her height by his shirt collar. “No, come out with me before it’s too late to get a dinner reservation. In fact, you can choose the movie. And I’ll never make you worry about nasty old Hiram again.” She leans up and kisses him gently on the cheek, soft as velvet. “I promise.”

Hermione could have asked Fred to walk on water and he would have said yes. His eyes look like cartoon hearts. “You can wear my coat,” he proposes gallantly, shrugging it off. Fred’s in only a T-shirt. He’ll probably be blue by the time they get to the movies. Hermione beams and slides it on.

“Have I told you how much I love you lately?” she asks, twirling her hair.

Fred slides his arm around her, steering her back down the driveway and past the mailbox with his eyes firmly fixed on her face. Fp resists the urge to stick out a foot and trip him. “No, tell me again.”

FP watches them all the way down the street. Then he trudges up to the Andrews front door and says hello to Fred’s mom and taste-tests a heart-shaped cookie. Asks to use the phone.

Mary picks up on the first ring.

“Mary, you ever do the right thing but it feels like the wrong one? Or, wait.” FP furrows his brow, sitting down on a kitchen stool. “Switch those.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mary says dryly.

“And you’re happier for it. Do you want to get a milkshake with me and talk about how much we hate Valentine’s Day?”

“I dunno, FP.”

“How much we hate Fred, then.”

“Okay, sold.” FP glances at the clock, crunching another cookie, and knows she won’t keep him waiting. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”


End file.
